Presbyterian; the five Smectymnuans (Marshall, Calamy, Young, Newcomen, and Spurstow) were all in the Assembly; and among the other most active Presbyterians in it were Arrowsmith, Burges, Caryl, Cheynel, Conant, Gataker, Gouge, Harris, Herle, Hill, Hodges, Palmer, Reynolds, Sedgwick, Staunton, Tuckney, Vines, White, and Whitaker.

II. INDEPENDENTS IN THE ASSEMBLY. There had been a private effort to secure some efficient representation of Independency in the Assembly thus dense with Presbyterians. In September 1642, a letter, signed by five Peers and thirty-four other persons (among whom were Oliver Cromwell, Arthur Haselrig, and Nathaniel Fiennes), had been sent to New England, earnestly requesting that Mr. Cotton of Boston, Mr. Hooker of Hartford, and Mr. Davenport of New Haven, would come over to assist in "the settling and composing the affairs of the Church." Davenport would have gone, but could not obtain leave from his congregation; Hooker "liked not the business, nor thought it any sufficient call for them to go three thousand miles"; Cotton would not go alone. When, therefore, the Westminster Assembly was constituted, all that could be managed by those in Parliament who were interested was to procure the return to the Assembly of the five English Congregationalist ministers who had recently returned from Holland: viz. Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, William Bridge, Jeremiah Burroughs, and Sidrach Simpson. These five, the most mild and moderate of all to whom the name of "Independent could be applied, the least removed from the Presbyterians, were the sole wedge of Independency among the divines of the Assembly at its outset. Their views were favoured, however, by some of the lay-members, including Viscount Saye and Sele and Sir Harry Vane.1

One observation more on the composition of the Assembly. A few of the members, whether Presbyterian or Independent in the main matter, came to be distinguished by a collective name, indicating that they wore their colours, whether of

1 Fuller's Church Hist. III. 446-7, and 461-5; Lightfoot's and Gillespie's Notes of the Westminster Assembly,

passim; Baillie, II. 110; Neal's Puritans, III. 130-135, and 258 et seq.; Palfrey's New England, I. 581–2.

Presbyterianism or of Independency, with a difference from the rest. They were called THE ERASTIANS, from a notion that they held views of the relations between Church and State like those which had been propounded by the SwissGerman theologian and physician Erastus (1524-1583), and maintained, after him, by some of the more eminent of the English Reformers. The essence of Erastianism, or what had come to be called Erastianism, was that all power of discipline, ecclesiastical as well as civil, belongs ultimately to the State, the Church not being independent of the State by Divine constitution as an imperium in imperio, but being only the ecclesiastical department of the State's service, or the State itself acting ecclesiastically. Hence the office of pastor or minister in a congregation was not to be regarded as essentially coercive or judicial, but only as instructive or persuasive, like that of a professor among his pupils, and the right of excommunication, suspension from church-membership, or other so-called spiritual penalty, did not belong to the Church in herself, but only by deputation from the State, and subject to revision by the State. One can see how any one in the Westminster Assembly holding such views, or any modification of them, would inevitably, whether a Presbyterian or an Independent in the main, be led into eccentric positions. Accordingly the little band of Erastians in the Assembly are seen zig-zagging across the line of main division and causing complications of the main controversy. Among the divines of the Assembly there seem to have been but two avowed Erastians: viz. Dr. Lightfoot and Mr. Coleman, both of them Rabbinists and Orientalists, and both belonging on the whole to the Presbyterian majority; but Erastianism had its adherents among the lay-members, and especially among the lawyers. Bulstrode Whitlocke and Oliver St. John were of the number, but Selden was the chief. The position of this great scholar and wit in the Assembly was, indeed, altogether peculiar. For a long while he took a delight in attending the meetings of the Assembly, and joining in the debates, but mainly for the purpose of seeing fair play, or rather of perplexing the divines equally all round by his subtlety and learning.

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Sometimes, when they had cited a text of Scripture to "prove their assertion," says his friend and fellow-member, Whitlocke, "he would tell them, 'Perhaps in your little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves' (which they would often "pull out and read) 'the translation may be thus, but the "Greek or the Hebrew signifies thus and thus ;' and so would "totally rout them." There may be a little mischief in this memorandum of Whitlocke, for there were good Hellenists and Hebraists in the Assembly besides Selden; but it is in the main accurate. Fuller's account is to the same effect. Among the difficulties of the Assembly he specially mentions what was complained of in Selden; to wit, "that, advantaged "by his skill in antiquity, common law, and the Oriental "tongues, he employed them rather to pose than profit, "perplex than inform, the members thereof." And Fuller, as usual, shows that he understood the man. "This great "scholar," he adds, "not overloving of any clergymen, and "least of those, delighted himself in raising of scruples "for the vexing of others; and some stick not to say "that those who will not feed on the flesh of God's "Word cast most bones to others, to break their teeth "therewith." This is slyly expressed, but it depicts Selden to the life. It was not because he was fond of the soft or nutritive parts of Scripture himself that he called the attention of others chiefly to the hard parts or bones. He was at heart a kind of Latitudinarian or Free-thinker. Above all, he was a clergy-hater. "The clergy and the "laity together," he said in one of his morsels of table-talk, are never likely to do well. It is as if a man were to "make an excellent feast, and should have his apothecary "and his physician to come to his kitchen: the cooks, if "they were let alone, would make excellent meat; but then "comes the apothecary, and he puts rhubarb into one sauce, "and agaric into another. Chain up the clergy on both "sides." Here was Selden's chief principle of Church polity, which he had held while Laud ruled, and which he held now in a changed world. It was more than Erastianism; but he was long-headed enough to pass for the nonce as

only the chief of the Erastians. They were but a small band in the Assembly numerically, but were not to be unimportant. Not themselves believing (at least, the lawyers and laymen among them) in any absolute or jure divino form of Church government, settled once for all by Scripture, but thinking that the form might vary with time and political circumstances, they could see a clear duty in the Assembly reserved for them collectively. They might have their predilections individually for some one form of Church government; and the predilection of nearly all of them, I think, was for some kind of Presbyterianism, though among others there was a leaning to Independency, or even a lingering kindness for Episcopacy. Their best.

plan, however, was not to put forward their own views positively, but to listen to the schemes of those who believed that there was a jure divino form of Church rule, weigh the several schemes thus tendered, criticise them here and there, and in the end vote for those portions of the scheme of their predilection which they were convinced would do, and those modifications of other portions which had been proved to be reasonable. In the prosecution of this policy the Erastians of the Assembly were, in more than one juncture, to be brought into co-operation with the Independents.1

1 Whitlocke's Memorials, I. 208-9; Fuller's Church Hist. III. 468; Neal's Puritans, III. 56 and 110; Lightfoot's

and Gillespie's Notes of the Assembly; Baillie, II. 129 and 198.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.